MLB Networkhttp://www.adweek.com/taxonomy/term/16972/all
enFox Sports 1 Powers Through Its First Monthhttp://www.adweek.com/news/television/fox-sports-1-powers-through-its-first-month-152555
Anthony Crupi<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/fox-sports-hed-2013.gif"> <p>
A month after its much-ballyhooed launch, <a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsports1" target="_blank">Fox Sports 1</a> is proving itself to be a much more attractive advertising environment than its predecessor.</p>
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According to Nielsen data, FS1&rsquo;s first 30 days have shown vast improvement over the now defunct Speed. On a total-day basis, the network has boosted its overall deliveries by 29 percent compared to the year-ago period, while men 18-49 are up 49 percent.</p>
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Nightly ratings have improved even more sharply, as overall prime-time viewership is up 102 percent while men 18-49 have soared 180 percent. Last week alone, FS1 averaged 302,000 viewers in prime, marking a 54 percent improvement from the 196,000 viewers Speed reached in the period spanning Sept. 10-16, 2012. Moreover, when compared to FS1&rsquo;s first full week of operations, the network&rsquo;s prime-time deliveries are up 92 percent.</p>
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In that same period, FS1 made short work of the rest of the second-tier sports nets, out-rating MLB Network (235,000 viewers), <a href="http://www.nbcsports.com/" target="_blank">NBCSN</a> (100,000) and Golf Channel (97,000). (With a distribution footprint of just 48 million homes, <a href="http://www.cbssportsnetwork.com/" target="_blank">CBS Sports Network</a> is not rated by Nielsen in an official capacity.)</p>
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While it&rsquo;s not going to lay a glove on <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/skipper-146804" target="_blank">The Worldwide Leader in Sports</a> any time soon&mdash;thanks in large part to Monday Night Football and a robust slate of college football, ESPN <em>owns</em> the fourth quarter; last week, the net averaged 4.26 million viewers in prime&mdash;FS1 is dominating the rest of the field. In its first month on the air, FS1 topped NBCSN 24 out of 30 nights among men 18-49.</p>
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Predictably, the only non-ESPN net FS1 did not overshadow was NFL Network, which began its Thursday Night Football schedule on Sept. 12. NFL Net last week averaged 1.31 million viewers, making it the No. 9 ad-supported cable property.</p>
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&ldquo;We never considered the <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/fox-sports-1-launch-aug-17-147720" target="_blank">launch day</a> to be the launch strategy,&rdquo; said Mike&nbsp;Mulvihill, Fox Broadcasting svp of programming and research.&nbsp;&ldquo;As more major events and promotional platforms come online (college football, the NFL), we&rsquo;ve been able to build awareness among sports fans. The in-game <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/fox-sports-cooks-epic-promo-fs1-151058" target="_blank">promotion</a> on Fox&rsquo;s NFL coverage alone is incredibly valuable.&rdquo;</p>
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In addition to all the extra eyeballs, FS1 presents a more compelling audience profile. With a median age of 45, the network has already shaved off seven years from the old Speed number. Household income is up 12 percent to $60,400 and deliveries in the top DMAs now account for 21 percent of the total FS1 audience. (At Speed, that penetration was 18 percent.)</p>
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In Mulvihill&rsquo;s estimation, the national cable sports landscape is quickly becoming a two-horse race. Already, FS1 is demonstrating gains among its individual sports franchises, and some of the studio shows are gathering steam. Since its launch, the 11 p.m. Fox Sports Live show is up 141 percent in total viewers, and the half-hour <a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/watch/racehub/" target="_blank">Nascar Race Hub</a> &ldquo;is doing so well that we&rsquo;re going to expand it to an hour,&rdquo; Mulvihill said.</p>
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One FS1 property that <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/fox-sports-1-studio-shows-stumble-out-gate-152065" target="_blank">hasn&rsquo;t shown signs of early promise</a> is the 5 p.m. panel show <a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/watch/crowd-goes-wild" target="_blank">Crowd Goes Wild</a>. Anchored by&nbsp;Regis Philbin and featuring a collective of talking heads (Georgie Thompson, Michael Kosta, Trevor Pryce, Jason Gay and Katie Nolan), Crowd&rsquo;s weekday telecast last week averaged just over 65,000 viewers. On Sept. 9, Crowd drew a mere 28,000 viewers, its lowest turnout to date.</p>
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All told, Fox is pleased by the startup&rsquo;s initial performance.&nbsp;&ldquo;We have taken an asset we had in Speed and not only have grown the audience, but made it more attractive to advertisers,&rdquo; Mulvihill said.&nbsp;&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve made great strides without giving anything up in terms of the quality of our audience.&rdquo;</p>
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While Fox execs allow that it will likely take a generation for FS1 to unseat ESPN, its sports rights assets should allow for considerable growth in the near term. Per RBC Capital Markets&rsquo; estimates, FS1&rsquo;s portfolio of Major League Baseball, Nascar, FIFA, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/let-it-bleed-ufc-big-business-fox-146803" target="_blank">UFC</a> and NCAA Division I (Pac-12, Big 12) holdings should give Fox the leverage to boost the current affiliate fee from 22 cents a sub per month to $1. Factor in the requisite inflated CPM and carriage in an additional 9 million homes and FS1 could in short order draw an additional $1.2 billion in revenue to News Corp.&rsquo;s coffers.</p>
TelevisionCableCBS Sports NetworkCollege footballCrowd Goes WildEspnAnthony CrupiFox SportsFox Sports 1Fox Sports LiveFS1Golf ChannelMike MulvihillMLB NetworkNascar Race HubNational Football LeagueNBC Sports NetworkNBCSNNflNFL NetworkRatingsRatingsSpeedSportsUFCFri, 20 Sep 2013 17:41:40 +0000152555 at http://www.adweek.comFox Sports 1 Studio Shows Stumble Out of Gatehttp://www.adweek.com/news/television/fox-sports-1-studio-shows-stumble-out-gate-152065
Anthony Crupi<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/regis-philbin-hed-2013_1.jpg"> <p>
After getting off to a fast start a little more than a week ago, Fox Sports 1&rsquo;s signature highlights show is having trouble finding an audience.</p>
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According to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, <a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/watch/fox-sports-live" target="_blank">Fox Sports Live</a> put up some very soft numbers in its inaugural week. After bowing to 476,000 viewers on Aug. 17 (Saturday 10:45 p.m.-midnight EDT), the studio show dropped to 120,000 viewers on the following night and a mere 72,000 viewers on Monday. (By way of comparison, the late edition of ESPN&rsquo;s SportsCenter averaged 1.94 million viewers in the same slot.)</p>
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By Tuesday, the highlights show had slipped to an average draw of 61,000 viewers during the 11 p.m. hour. In fact, ratings were so unsettled in late-night that the odd morning hour repeats generally out-delivered the live telecasts. For example, the Tuesday 2 a.m. repeat drew 87,000 viewers, or 21,000 more than the Wednesday 11 p.m. show.</p>
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While last week&rsquo;s FSL results may be a bit disconcerting for the Fox Sports crew, it&rsquo;s perhaps best not to read <em>too</em> much into the early data. For one thing, we are in the midst of the sports world&rsquo;s version of a black hole, as <a href="http://mlb.mlb.com/home" target="_blank">Major League Baseball</a> is presently the only active member of the Big Four. Presumably, live sports, like the network&#39;s<a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsports1" target="_blank"> upcoming college football slate</a>, will drive a greater cohort of enthusiasts to the highlights show.</p>
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That said, other FS1 franchises are off to a disconcertingly poor start. Anchored by&nbsp;Regis Philbin, the panel show Crowd Goes Wild has had little luck in its weekday 5 p.m. slot. After premiering Monday, August 19, to 74,000 viewers, <a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/watch/crowd-goes-wild" target="_blank">Crowd Goes Wild</a> would go on to deliver 44,000 the following day. Wednesday&rsquo;s show averaged 36,000 viewers, while the Thursday afternoon installment bottomed out in front of just 29,000 viewers.</p>
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Crowd did bounce back significantly on Friday, improving sixfold to 179,000 viewers. While there&rsquo;s no surefire way to ascertain what caused the sudden upshift, perhaps it had something to do with a guest appearance by Isiah Thomas, who <a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/watch/crowd-goes-wild/video/questions-out-of-left-field-isiah-thomas-082413" target="_blank">answered questions about his favorite breed of dog and the color of his aura</a>.</p>
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Produced by <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/genius-who-produces-pure-television-150258" target="_blank">Embassy Row</a>, Crowd is shot in front of a live audience at Silver Screen Studios in New York&rsquo;s Chelsea Piers complex.&nbsp;</p>
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Thus far, FS1 earned its biggest deliveries on launch day, drawing 1.78 million viewers with its August 18 presentation of UFC Fight Night. A two-hour pre-bout show scared up 881,000 viewers, while an afternoon Nascar Camping World Truck Series event drew 783,000 fans.</p>
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In its first full week on the air, FS1 averaged 157,000 viewers in prime time, of which 67,000 were members of the adult 18-49 demo. The network also averaged 79,000 adults 25-54. The ratings were similarly proportioned in total-day, as FS1 averaged 81,000 viewers, 38,000 adults 18-49 and 40,000 members of the 25-54 set.</p>
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Clearly, the nascent network has a ways to go before it starts stealing share from ESPN. Last week, Bristol delivered 2.25 million viewers in prime, of which 958,000 were in the dollar demo. In other words, ESPN out-delivered the upstart by a factor of 14.</p>
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ESPN reaches 98.9 million U.S. households, or about 86 percent of all TV homes. FS1 launched in 90 million homes, or 78 percent of the national TV universe.</p>
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If <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/disney-s-rasulo-dismisses-fox-sports-1-threat-149928" target="_blank">FS1 isn&rsquo;t exactly shaking up the big dog</a>, it stood its ground against many of the other 24/7 sports nets. While NFL Network averaged more than double the prime time deliveries (384,000), MLB Network only beat out FS1 by a margin of 35,000 viewers. Meanwhile, the startup trounced NBC Sports Network (161,000 vs. 96,000) and easily handled Golf Channel, beating it by some 29,000 viewers.</p>
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Nielsen does not measure ratings for CBS Sports Network in an official capacity. The channel reaches just 48 million homes.</p>
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Thanks to the launch of its <a href="http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb.html" target="_blank">English Premier League</a> coverage, NBCSN last week enjoyed a bit of a ratings bump. The sports net saw its week-over-week prime time deliveries rise 25 percent from 77,000 viewers, while total-day usage grew 29 percent to 80,000.</p>
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NBCSN&rsquo;s inaugural EPL telecast (Stoke-Liverpool) averaged 287,000 viewers on the morning of Saturday, August 17. The 10 a.m. match between Aston Villa and Arsenal drew 450,000 diehards. (Unsurprisingly, NBC&rsquo;s Manchester United-Swansea match at 12:30 p.m. put up the biggest numbers, delivering 792,000 viewers.)</p>
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All told, the four opening weekend matches on NBCSN averaged 356,000 viewers.</p>
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Soccer this week drew even more fans, converts and curiosity seekers, as Monday&rsquo;s&nbsp;Man U-Chelsea match averaged 536,000 viewers, a near-record for an early-season EPL telecast. (ESPN2 drew 540,000 viewers with the August 22, 2011, Man U-Tottenham match.)</p>
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NBCUniversal <a href="http://keepingscore.blogs.time.com/2013/08/16/nbc-plays-soccer-everywhere/" target="_blank">snatched up the U.S. rights to EPL matches in October,</a> signing a three-year, $250 million deal. Fox Sports had paid about a third of that ($80 million) for its 2010-12 contract.</p>
TelevisionCableCBS Sports NetworkCrowd Goes WildEmbassy RowEnglish Premier LeagueAnthony CrupiFox SportsFox Sports 1FS1Michael DaviesMLB NetworkNBC Sports NetworkNBCSNNFL NetworkPrime Time Cable RatingsRatingsRatingsRegis PhilbinSportsUFC Fight NightTue, 27 Aug 2013 23:35:09 +0000152065 at http://www.adweek.com